Sonographs: selected sound snapshots.
I understand the term sonography as a parallel to the word photography. It is about sound images of real situations, various sounding things, travel experiences and similar. There are usually one, two minutes snapshots here, rarely a longer capture of some curious local atmosphere. In times of gramophones the length of a recording was limited by size of a gramophone plate to a couple of minutes, I guess it helps focused listening also today.
You will find GPS coordinates along with some of the recordings. If you like something you may try to find the place and listen to the sound in real time and with your “own ears”. Even the best recording can never replace an authentic experience.
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Defrosting
Defrosting a six drawer freezer. The sound of various grates has always attracted me - a handrail, an iron doormat, a grate in the oven, a clothes horse, the frame with strings taken out of a piano. Six grates sound here as pieces of ice and drops fall through them.
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Tesla coil - Brmlab
Two meters tall Tesla coil in the hackerspace named Brmlab, in Prague. Thanks for the recording to Radka Hanečková, who is the author of this beautiful high-voltage beast. More on the web of Brmlab.
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Pelješac 2017
An excursion to the Mediterranean nature which was organized by zoologists from the Faculty of Science in Prague - Adam, Marcela, Petr and Lucie for their students and friends, many thanks! In neoprene, with the bare skin. Here is a medley of what microphones (and hydrophones) heard. Headphones recommended.
Gravel, seeshore in Žuljana (0:00), hillside above the see at night (0:44), meadow at night (1:13), cicadas on the island of Mljet (1:35), on a motorboat (2:42), snapping shrimps by hydrophones (3:07), morning at the aquarium - A., M., P. and L. speaking about animals (3:40), night snorkeling (4:23), kemp večer (5:41), night thunderstorm on the horizon (6:00), rocks on the shore of Žuljana (7:43), crevices (8:13).
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Irrigation
Mobile irrigation system on the snapshot consists of two parts, a spool with hose and a sprinkler head on wheels. One end of the hose is attached to a water source, the other to the sprinkler on the opposite side of a field. A mechanism powered just by water pressure slowly revolves the spool winding up the hose and pulling the sprinkler towards it. A whole strip of field is successively watered. The sonography is a mix of sounds of both parts of the machine.
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Spring
A long spring that sounds rather unlikely in the rural landscape. A bit as if the sound was artificially synthetised for a sci-fi movie. In fact, it is a part of an electric fence.
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Corn
I am sitting in the corn and I am happy. Luckily, I don't need to thing about anything else right now…
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Friedensglocke des Alpenraumes
It is known also as Friedensglocke Mösern (by the place where it is found, village Mösern close to Innsbruck, Austria. Möserer Dorfstraße 11, 6100 Telfs)
"Peace bell" reminds of many years of successful collaboration among Alpine countries. It is located at approximately 1200 meters above sea level where really a good and far view of Inn river may be enjoyed. The bell was casted by Grassmayr bellfoundry in Innsbruck and it has something above ten tons. The bell is swung by an electric motor instead of live bell-ringers, the introductory speach is also only a recording, but the whole event is started by a ceremonially dressed bedel comming from a nearby hotel.
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Patella vulgata
Common limpet (Patella vulgata), a see mollusc, feeded at the rocky shore of Brittany by almost inaudible nibbling at stones, as is supposed to be its habit. Recorded in the summer 2016. 48.6740100N, 3.8472511W
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Austrian locomotive
On my way to Austria the train was pulled by a locomotive that gave a sigh before each departure and then played a musical scale. I don't know why, it has probably some technical reason. However, if you know how it works let me know, please.
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Flying carps
I stayed recording by the pond Smutný (South Bohemia) until the deep night and all the time the carps were trying to jump above the surface as if they definitely stopped liking their life in water. The file has a day and a night part, nevertheless, carps never took a rest, even after the dusk.
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Cormorants
A breeding coloniy of the Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) that lives at the pond Ženich for years now.
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Watermill
A tour through a working watermill u Veselých (0:00 top floor: setting in motion, 1:01 top floor: rotary cleaner, 1:19 middle floor: pulverizing equipment, 1:40 in detail, 1:53 first floor: transmission shafting from different directions).
The recording was made possible thanks to kindliness of the present miller Mr. Zdeněk Veselý, 30th August, 2015. 49.9888428N, 14.2903231E -
Fresh energy
The spring has started. Everything is full of energy. Wires too.
Marshes near the Chvaletice power plant, Czech republic, 5/4/2014 (50°02'48.7"N 15°23'59.4"E)
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Garden after the rain
April weather, the garden is full of life after a small shower.
Dvorek u Laškova (49.576231, 16.985623), 17. 4. 2007
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Sundial
„Like a sunflower…“ Sound of one of the radio telescopes at Ondrejov astronomical observatory. Its heavy clockwork keeps the axis of the whole device aiming exactly at the Sun, it points towards the Sun even when the sky is overcast. Standing near and putting a hand on this slowly turning iron structure one feels somehow in touch with that good old mechanics of the Universe which Copernicus, Brahe, or Kepler used to speculate about.
8/3/2014, 49°54'31.3"N 14°46'49.5"E
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Bohinj, Slovenia
A spring rain and a peculiar and beautiful sound “haze” that arises from multiple echoes of church bells ringing in Srednja vas and reflecting many times in the valley surrounded by high mountains. May 2013, Region of Bohinj, Slovenia
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Kozakov quarry thawing
Icicles covering the wall of the Kozakov agate quarry are slowly melting under the power of noon sun, they brake and fall down. 1/1/2013, Kozakov agate quarry, 50°35'23.5"N 15°15'40.2"E
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Les Ulis in the evening
Les Ulis is far from Paris. You need to take a train, a bus, and a walk. There is a supermarket there. I like those moments when the day is already over but the night has not come yet.
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ZEVO Praha-Malešice
ZEVO, Závod na Energetické Využití Odpadu (Waste incineration plant) in Prague - Malešice: the switches and relays in a control cabinet of cranes that lift the waste from a collection tank and load the kilns with it. Photo: ŠB
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ZEVO Praha-Malešice (2)
ZEVO (Waste incineration plant in Prague): the giant collection tank is being filled from a garbage truck.
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Floor in Musée des Arts et Métiers
There is a number of creaky sounds in my collection, however, I still hope to discover the right musical instrument somewhere, someday… The timber floor in this Parisian museum is almost perfect.
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Floor in the Catacombs of Paris
The living drag their bones and unsightly flesh among tidy piles of skulls and shanks. The underground path, dim and wet, is about two kilometers long. It's scattered with small pebbles. Or teeth?
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Under the bridge
Pretty chilly February time. Under a concrete bridge near Prague the Vltava river froze with just a fragile thin layer of ice. Cars are drumming. (49°59'34.9"N 14°23'54.2"E)
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Meadow, Central Bohemian Uplands
Late summer meadow in České Středohoří (Central Bohemian Uplands). 4/8/2012, Velké Žernoseky (50°33'22.507"N, 14°3'36.610"E)
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Meadow (2)
The meadow in České Středohoří (Central Bohemian Uplands) has that typical tired sound of late summer, almost like in autumn. 04/08/2012, Velké Žernoseky (50°33'22.507"N, 14°3'36.610"E)
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Brew-house in Třeboň
I would like to know whether they have other tunes in repertoire dependant on what kind of beer is currently being cooked. 49°00'06.3"N 14°46'24.7"E
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Air
This recording captures the sound of air flowing into an orifice. The orifice captures dust…
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Steam pipeline
Steam pipeline near Řetenice, 28/4/2012, Řetenice (50°37'39.7"N 13°48'06.4"E)
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Steam
Recorded in the old sewage treatment plant in Praha - Bubeneč, 3rd May, 2008. 50.110094, 14.402142
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Wetland, Háj u Duchcova
Spring air was endlessly filled with a chorus of Fire-bellied toads (Bombina bombina), but from time to time other frogs (perhaps Rana ridibunda) tried to show off, too.
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Bee in ear
Have you ever had a dream in which some insect crept into your ear? Take headphones and try the feeling again.
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A fly trapped in Sarracenia
In fact, quite a sad record about one creature dying inside another one. Actually, nothing for soft-hearted.
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The astronomical clock in Olomouc
Olomouc, a nice and historical town in the east part of the Czech Republic possesses a really unique rarity. Each midday mirages from the times of collectively commanded happiness and well hidden concentration camps show off on the town-hall façade. 49.594120, 17.251213
Accompanied by sound of bells, the saints of communism rotate here on the wooden pedestals: workmen, peasants, craftsmen and even sportsmen (women). And a chemist on the mosaic full of enhusiasm works happily for the welfare of his socialistic homeland and its beauty and for the welfare of proletariat and its vanguard, the Communist party, as it had to be openly promised by every small child in front of a special committee in those times.
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Wailing wind in St. Wenceslas cathedral, Olomouc
Believe me that I have not complemented this recording in any electronic way, neither it was synthetised or mixed from multiple layers. All the surprising harmony appearing through transitional dissonances, transformations of timbre and dynamics and the minimalistic quarter-tone melodies you could have heard as well if you happened to be at the right time and place: one windy spring noon in 2005 in the St. Wenceslas cathedral in Olomouc when the stained-glass windows (vitrail) were partly removed due to renovation work. 49.597763, 17.262527
